God's Jealousy

There's even less churches where you're going to sing the Psalms word for word, according to at least one viable translation of the Bible. A lot of churches sing Psalms, and then when you find out what they're singing, somebody rewrote a Psalm so it would rhyme and have meter, and that's nice. But at some point, you really just have a hymn now, right?

So we're pretty excited to do that. Exodus 20, we'll just read 1 through 5. We'll do 1 through 6. And just a reminder, I have challenged you to memorize Exodus 20. Only 1 through 17 is what I've challenged you to memorize. And basically, it's just the Ten Commandments, which I think most people should know anyway.

So I hope you're working on it. And it's not too late to start because we're still only on the Second Commandment. Exodus 20. And God spoke all these words, saying, I am Yahweh your God who brought you out of the land of Egypt, out of the house of slavery. You shall have no other gods before me. You shall not make for yourself a carved image or any likeness of anything that is in heaven above or that is in the earth beneath or that is in the water under the earth.

You shall not bow down to them or serve them. For I, Yahweh your God, am a jealous God, visiting the iniquity of the fathers on the children to the third and the fourth generation of those who hate me, but showing steadfast love to thousands of those who love me and keep my commandments. As a reading of God's holy word, you may be seated. Usually I title my sermon after I give it.

There's a kind of strange reason that works out that way. But this week I already titled my sermon, and what did I title it? God's Jealousy. Because what I'm really going to teach you about and preach to you about this week is God's jealousy. So we're going to discuss what is an attribute of God, or sometimes we call it one of the perfections of God. And when we talk about God's attributes, we're talking about who he is, specifically what he is, who he is.

This is definitional of God. It's part of his essence. It's an essential aspect of who God is. In fact, everything about God is essential. There's no accidents in God, if you understand those philosophical terms. But when we talk about God's jealousy, some people could level the charge that, well, this is heady or philosophical or lofty, that this is the kind of stuff academics talk about or seminarians talk about.

And certainly it is. And this is the kind of thing that educated people talk about. And my opinion is that everybody in the church should also be educated. And everybody in the church should also be interested in doing theology. When we talk about the theology of God, a lot of times it's called theology proper. And so I want to encourage you that even though we're not going to review a narrative account of Jesus feeding people with fish and bread, or, you know, read some letter of Paul that has some logical things going on, I want to encourage you that understanding who God is, is essential to your Christian life.

Knowing the right God is essential to you being saved in the first place. And as I think it was R.C. Sproul who said, there's nobody that doesn't like theology. Or, you know, some people say, well, I'm not a theologian. And he was criticizing them. He said, everyone's a theologian.

The question is whether you're a good one or a bad one. The question is whether you're doing theology right or not. And so we all have thoughts about God. We all have an opinion of what God should or shouldn't be. And some of those opinions and thoughts are informed by Scripture and guided by Scripture. And some of them aren't.

And so let's delve into Scripture and find out what God's jealousy means and what it looks like. And from an application standpoint, sometimes it's not as obvious. So what I mean by that is, you know, we can read a lot of passages of Scripture. And we can say, well, because of this, we should do this. because Jesus died and said, go therefore we should go and we should proclaim the gospel.

So a lot of it's obvious. We talk about God's attributes, sometimes it's not as obvious what we should do. A lot of times we're not even supposed to imitate God. God's different from us, so there's certain things we'll never be like Him. So I want to challenge you, first of all, that I think when we study God's jealousy and why He's jealous, it does have an implication for how we ought to live.

But one of the things for sure, when you study God and you study His attributes and you learn about something that is true of God, that is revealed in Scripture, it should just bring you to praise. Even if you can't figure out a single thing that you should do different in your life from what you were already doing because of what I tell you today, it should cause you to fall to your knees and worship Him because everything about Him is worthy of worship. It's that simple.

So for some of you, this will be shocking. For some of you, maybe it will be not so shocking. I want you to turn to Ezekiel 23. Ezekiel 23. Ezekiel 23 is a very interesting chapter. Of course, I could say that about every chapter of the Bible, probably, but Ezekiel 23 stands out as quite unique And the reason is that it has some of the most explicit descriptions of adultery that there are found anywhere in scripture In fact, the types of descriptions in Ezekiel 23 are probably sufficient to get a book banned from a library for its content. so before you want to ban books there's some bad books out there but before you go and you want to ban books just make sure you check to see if the Bible says something similar as the book you want to ban because this is pretty explicit so I'm not going to read it but Ezekiel 23 we're going to go to verse 36 to 39 just to summarize it God presents through Ezekiel two ladies in this chapter one lady represents Samaria their names are similar Ohola and Oholiba Ohola and Oholiba and I probably am saying it wrong but if we get a Hebrew scholar in here you can help me with that and he describes these two ladies they're sisters in this story and they're describing two nations and what he does is he makes a description of them as women who have basically, I'm going to use biblical terminology here, but basically have gone out whoring themselves.

These are not ladies that stayed home, took care of their homes, they didn't take care of their husbands, they didn't stay loyal to that which they were to stay loyal to. He describes for them women who are effectively free prostitutes at this point. So if you think prostitution is a really bad thing, And it is just remember that there's women out there who effectively give it away for free.

OK, I don't know. I don't know which is worse in that sense. At least the one thinks there's some value in it for her. But when when this happens, God, God describes it in these terms that make you think about adultery. It makes you think about how evil it is that somebody would go out whoring themselves. and not being faithful to the man that they're called to be faithful to by God.

And God decides he's going to judge. And so I just want to read a few verses to show you that the whole time God is talking about idolatry as well. That even though adultery is the sin that's described, that the idea of physically consummating with another person who's not your spouse is what's described. And some of the things that you do with this other person are described.

And honestly, a little bit of it makes you blush detail, okay? But that's what makes it so bad is that you can imagine it when it happens, okay? You talk to anybody who's had a spouse cheat on them. you know we use we use the word we just say cheat you know or we say had an affair we use these euphemisms but that person is thinking about their spouse actually acting in certain ways that only they're supposed to know that they act with somebody else and that's what makes it so hurtful for people but so verse 36 yahweh said to me son of man will you judge a whole law and oh Oholiba, declared to them their abominations.

So God has revealed Himself to these people, these nations, Samaria and Israel. And He says, For they have committed adultery, which is a very clear thing we all understand. It's a physical thing we all understand that happens. He says, And blood is on their hands. And then He says, With their idols they have committed adultery. God is giving us a lesson here in the way that he so often does, where he teaches us something about a spiritual truth, what is idolatry, by comparing it to a physical reality that would be obvious to all of us.

I would dare say you could go to any culture in the world, and if you could learn their language, and you could speak to them immediately, that every culture in the history of the world would have some definition of a male-female union of marriage because it's so natural and so obvious, and they would have a definition of what it is to cheat. It is so built in us, actually, to have jealousy when there's some kind of cheating or infidelity, or even the thought of it, that it's obvious to everyone. And now God is wanting us to recognize that the idolatry that people commit by worshiping other gods, by manufacturing gods in their own image, and carving out images, and worshiping something that is not God, or attempting to worship God through an image they've made, God is saying that that is similar to adultery.

Adultery will lead us to other sin as well. Look at what he says after this in verse 37. He says, With their idols they have committed adultery, and they have even offered up to them for food the children whom they adorn to me. Moreover, not only were they offering their children to their false gods. This is what Israel was doing. They were following after the nations around them.

They were sacrificing their own children. moreover this they have done to me they have defiled my sanctuary on the same day and profaned my sabbaths these people were actually worshipping the false gods seven days a week they didn even take Sunday off of it at least give lip service to God for one day At least we give Roman Catholics credit they seem to take a day off of their debauchery or at least a morning in 2021 But he says in 39, for when they had slaughtered their children in sacrifice to their idols, on the same day they came into my sanctuary to profane it. and behold this is what they did in my house and then there's more but so what i want you to understand is that idolatry is spiritual adultery and so when you want to start thinking in your head so we're working a little bit backwards we're on the second commandment but i'm referring to the seventh one and the reason is you don't understand the second commandment because you're not god you don't quite get it naturally I don't get it naturally but we all understand the seventh commandment in fact little kids understand it a little kid would know if their daddy was doing something wrong if they saw him looking at another girl they know this at a very young age it's built into us and so what God is telling us to do is he's telling us to consider our idolatry that we commit against him and to think of it in the kind of terms that we think of adultery. Turn to James chapter 3. We're going to talk about God's jealousy.

And the first question that would come into my mind if someone said, I'm going to tell you about God's jealousy, is I would think to myself, well, jealousy is bad. so we can't say that about God of course when I say that's the first thing that would come to my mind that's the first non-sanctified kind of thing it's a worldly thought because I'm going to show you that man's jealousy is bad and can be bad so there is a bad form of jealousy and because you are so utterly familiar with the bad form of jealousy that you have in your own heart and that you've seen from others you don't want to ascribe that trait to God and that's natural But we need to differentiate here between man's jealousy and God's jealousy. James 3.14. We'll start here.

I just want to prove to you briefly. When I say briefly, that's more of a challenge to myself than announcement of anything. I have so much more I want to get to than this. You already know jealousy is wrong, right? James 3.14. But if you have bitter jealousy and selfish ambition in your hearts, do not boast and be false to the truth.

He says, this is not the wisdom that comes from above, but is earthly, unspiritual, demonic. That's strong words. If you have bitter jealousy, he's calling it demonic. I dare say that a Christian should never want to do a single thing that could be ascribed to being demonic. I mean, not even for a moment. He says, for where jealousy and selfish ambition exist, there will be disorder in every vile practice.

He's not talking about a husband who's jealous because his wife has strayed away, or a husband who's jealous because another man's just even trying to court her. Maybe she's not even bothered by it. He's not talking about what I will say is a normal kind of even healthy jealousy we should have. The kind of jealousy that reflects his love for his people and Jesus' love for his own bride.

But he's talking about the kind of jealousy that says, hey, that guy got a touchdown and I didn't, so now I'm mad at him. Or the kind of jealousy that is jealous that somebody else has had some kind of success in their life that you didn't get to experience yourself. Spurgeon says, you cannot commit a greater crime against some people than to be more useful than they are. that's under the heading of jealousy in this virgin quote book by my friend Carrie Allen he says when we meet a brother with ten talents do we congratulate ourselves on having such a man given to help us or do we depreciate him as much as we can such is the depravity of our nature that we do not readily rejoice in the progress of others if they leave us behind, he says, but we must school ourselves to this.

So we're by nature a bit jealous in our thinking. Galatians 5, wonderful chapter that explains to us the fruit of the Spirit, and it also explains to us the nature of the flesh. Turn to Galatians 5, verse 19. Just listen to this list. Now the works of the flesh are evident. Sexual immorality, impurity, sensuality, idolatry, sorcery, enmity, strife, jealousy.

Fits of anger, rivalries, dissensions, divisions, envy, drunkenness, orgies, and even in one version it says murders. This is not a good list. The jealousy is in the list. And so for me to stand in front of you and say God's jealous, reading Exodus 20 to you, you need to ask yourself the question well what does it mean that jealousy is the fruit of the flesh and god's jealous at the same time we have to be able to think through things a little bit we can't simply just look at it and say oh well jealousy bad jealousy bad you have to be able to form whole sentences first of all that's part of the problem but we have to be able to form thoughts we have to be able to understand something called nuance where there's times that jealousy means one thing and there's times that jealousy means something else.

We don't have all the possible words we have to describe every thought and emotion. Sometimes the same words are used multiple times. There actually some funny sentences on the internet that show you that They kind of fun We not going to get into those now 2 Corinthians 12 I just want to prove to you briefly 2 Corinthians 12.20, that jealousy is bad.

Paul says in Corinthians, For I fear that perhaps when I come, I may find you not as I wish, and that you may find me not as you wish, that perhaps there may be quarreling, jealousy, anger, hostility, slander, gossip, conceit and disorder jealousy once again in this list of horrible things Romans 13.13 let us walk properly as in the daytime not in orgies and drunkenness not in sexual immorality and sensuality not in quarreling and jealousy I hope I've made the case that jealousy when it comes to the way that we normally employ it in our human condition because we are jealous of somebody else's accomplishments or gifts that they've even been given by God. Somebody else's success that I've proven to you that that is from your flesh and you are not to participate in that. But that is not the kind of jealousy that God is describing himself with.

To turn to 1 Corinthians 10, verse 22. The same Paul that tells the Corinthians he's concerned when he shows up there's going to be jealousy among them. 1 Corinthians 10, verse 22. the chapter about communion, about how we don't participate with idols. He says in verse 22, shall we provoke the Lord to jealousy? He's warning them about participating in the cup of idols, cup of demons, or table of demons.

He says, don't provoke the Lord to jealousy. and then in James 4.5 he says do you suppose it is no purpose that the scripture says he yearns jealously over the spirit that he has made to dwell in us so turn to Deuteronomy 32 I want to show you now that God is jealous that his jealousy is righteous for a number of reasons first reason being that God is worthy of our praise and glory and honor already the second reason being that as is the case with Israel God has done so many things for you and for us together as a church that it's actually irrational from even a human perspective to turn to other gods Deuteronomy 32.9 let me read through some verses here let me take a quick peek ahead to make sure I'm on track but Yahweh's portion is his people Jacob his allotted heritage so he's talking about Israel here his people which I'll just translate for you That means us now as church too. Same concept that's going to apply. He found him in a desert land, and in the howling waste of the wilderness, he encircled him.

He cared for him. He kept him as the apple of his eye. Like an eagle that stirs up its nest, that flutters over its young, spreading out its wings, catching them, bearing on its pinions. So you have this mama eagle taking care of her babies, right? Yahweh alone guided him, the nation of Israel. No foreign God was with him, with Jacob, right?

If your Bible's not open, you should open it to Deuteronomy 32 right now. He made him ride on the high places of the land, and he ate the produce of the field. And he suckled him with honey out of the rock and oil out of the flinty rock. So God takes Jacob out of the desert where there's nothing, and he puts him basically in abundance. He's feeding him, he's providing.

Curds from the herd and milk from the flock with fat of lambs, rams of Bashan and goats with the very finest of the wheat. And you drank foaming wine made from the blood of the grape. This is the description of prosperity. I dare say that in the United States, we have experienced an abundance of prosperity as well. And we are as susceptible to the error that Israel made and that we're about to read about.

So verse 15, there's a word, Jeshurun. It's a really interesting word. And when I got to it, I thought, who's Jeshurun? I don't remember a Jeshurun I remember Jehu Judah don't remember Jeshurun it's a really interestingly Hebrew word it's only used four times in the Bible and most commentators agree that it refers to Israel but because Jeshurun was a special word used here we look at the meaning of Jeshurun When it's translated to Greek, it's actually translated as the Beloved One.

You know that word agape is the love word in Greek? Or agape. I was waiting for Bert to correct my pronunciation there. Is it agape? Okay. Well, good.

So I corrected myself and then I was wrong. But it uses a form of that word agape here as the Beloved One. And we have God describing His people as the Beloved One right before we're about to see their wicked apostasy. They were treated with all of the care and love that they could have required. Listen, but Jeshurun grew ferocious. fat and kicked. You grew fat, stout, and sleek.

Then he forsook God who made him, and scoffed at the rock of his salvation. So here we go. It's like the cycle of history. People repent and turn to God. God blesses them. People start to love the blessings more than they love the God that gave them.

And the next thing you know, they turn away from him. And Listen to what they did. They stirred him to jealousy with strange gods. With abominations they provoked him to anger. God is jealous for his people. They sacrificed to demons that were no gods.

To gods they had never known. To new gods that had come recently, whom your fathers had never dreaded. There's one God that made heaven and earth and everything in it. He's worthy of worship. And every other God that comes along is simply a created thing. A non-living created thing, which is even more atrocious about the whole thing.

I have more respect for somebody who worships another human, I guess, even than an idol. And that's still wicked. He says, you were unmindful of the rock that bore you, and you forgot the God who gave you birth. They just forgot. Jeshurun, the beloved one, the one that God had delivered out of the hands of the Egyptians. They forgot him.

He says, Yahweh saw and spurned them because of the provocation of his sons and daughters. And he said, I will hide my face from them. I will see what their end will be, for they are a perverse generation. Children in whom is no faithfulness. They have made me jealous with what is no God. They have provoked me to anger with their idols. so I will make them jealous with those who are no people.

I will provoke them to anger with a foolish nation. Now, two things I want to note here. First of all, God's jealousy is perfect. God's jealous for a couple of very important reasons that you should write down if you're a note-taker. First of all, God's jealous because He's perfect and He deserves all worthy. He is worthy of all glory and honor and praise.

And if you give it to anyone else, it's just that simple. He's jealous and He's right. we're often jealous because we're wrong. Okay? You know, even if, you know, you know, we're jealous because a more handsome guy walks in the room and, you know, you think your wife's going to look at him or something like that. You know, maybe we'll get a little jealous.

And part of that's because, well, we're insecure because, well, we know we're not as good looking as that guy maybe, right? And so we have this jealousy that's sort of normal, but at the same time it's based on the fact that there's actually something better out there than us. We all realize this. In God's case, his jealousy isn't based on... His jealousy is because he's perfect and he deserves to be worshipped.

And God would actually himself be an idolater if he worshipped anything else, if he allowed any other kind of worship. But second of all, I want you to remember something. God's jealousy, not only is it for his own glory, but it's for your good. God's jealous when you stray and seek idols for your satisfaction or for your comfort or even for your worship or for your salvation he's jealous for you because he wants what's best for you so whereas a lot of times our jealousy is very selfish particularly you know you look at the jealousy of a boyfriend and a girlfriend they're not even married yet and something's going on and you know they can get real jealous and angry and weird stuff can happen.

It's like, well, you're not even married. Sometimes people do very evil things because they just perceive something happened and they got jealous. Interestingly enough, the Old Testament had a whole method for a woman being exonerated of the suspicion of cheating on her husband if he sensed jealousy, if he felt jealous. So if you search for the word jealousy in the Old Testament, you can read about that. but God's jealous because he wants what's best for you and if you go chasing after other gods he knows it's going to lead you to more and more sin and it's going to lead you farther and farther away from him the only thing that actually can help you the one thing that's best for you it would be somewhat similar to a parent you don't want your kid going and following certain crowds of people because you know that it's going to lead to something bad.

It's not because you think you're all that and your kid has to do everything you say because you know everything. It's because you just at least know that one thing's bad for them. So you try to keep them away from it while they're little. And then when they get older and they start making those bad choices on their own, you kind of sense that almost jealousy, like, why don't you want to stay here where it's safe? where people who know the answer to your questions you're about to ask already.

So God, very angry about jealousy. I want to comment on one more thing. When it says they stirred him to jealousy with strange gods, it says they provoked him to anger and made him jealous. I want you to remember that God condescends in the scripture with something called anthropopathisms, which is when he uses a human sense of how we describe feelings to describe himself, because God is not emotional the way we are.

So it's not like God was hanging out in heaven and everything was good and he was self-sufficient and he was fine. And then, oh, wow, the Israelites started worshiping a false god and then his day was ruined. OK, it's not how God is. He's not like us. He doesn't even exist in time. But to describe the way that his disposition is towards sin and idolatry, he condescends to describe himself the way we can understand it as humans So don think of him as some capricious being out there It means he just constantly being tossed around by his emotions and by the waves of things around him He unmoved he unchangeable and as our confession says he without passions But, he hates idolatry.

And he describes himself as jealous. and this is the way that he wants us to understand historically in creation his disposition towards our idolatry our as he would put it even whoring about with other gods in second corinthians 11 2 you don't have to turn there you can turn to hosea 5 if you'd like in 2nd Corinthians 11 2 Paul says for I feel a divine jealousy for you so Paul's jealous he calls it a divine jealousy so this must be a different kind of jealousy than the normal man jealousy that Paul was deriding earlier he says since I betrothed you to one husband to present you as a pure virgin to Christ Paul compares jealousy with marriage. Our idolatry is compared to straying from our marriage. A pure virgin to Christ.

Well, isn't that, that would be the goal of all the children in the church, that they would be presented to their husband or to their wife one day as a pure virgin. That would be every parent in here's goal. Hopefully that would be the young people's goals as well, that on their wedding day, rather than be someone who has been stained by activity outside of marriage, even if it was with the person, that they would show up on that day ready, because that is the model that Paul wants us to have for Christ, as the bride of Christ.

That when Christ returns, I guess the question is this, when Christ returns and takes you home, let's say you're still on the earth, you're not dead how much of your idolatry do you want them to have to throw away first? You know what I mean? I don't want you to imagine this so much because I want images in your mind but if he was going to come in your house and throw away all your trash that has nothing to do with your worship of him but worship of false idols, I don't want him to have to spend any extra time on that.

Now praise the Lord he doesn't have to. but all of the book of Hosea is effectively a book describing a marriage of a man to a wife who strays Daniel, Hosea I'm trying to sing the song in my head while talking to you guys you got Daniel and then Hosea so Hosea is at the beginning there's actually a not terrible movie out there a Christian movie called Amazing Grace the story of Hosea it's with Rudy, Sean Astin's in it it's not a bad movie it helps you understand Hosea a little bit but Hosea has this wife and she's actually a wife who's going to stray from him she actually has children with other guys and Hosea has to deal with this and it's a very difficult thing The whole point of it, though, is it's an example of the God of love who loves Israel so much and keeps taking Israel back, his people back, even though they stray from him. So in Hosea 5.4, God writes, Their deeds do not permit them. Well, here we'll go to 3.

I know Ephraim and Israel is not hidden from me. for now oh Ephraim you have played the whore Israel is defiled okay so this is a description of physical adultery is what it sounds like right played the whore defiled but no he says their deeds do not permit them to return to their God for the spirit of whoredom is within them and they know not Yahweh the pride of Israel testifies to his face Israel and Ephraim shall stumble in his guilt. Judah also shall stumble with them. With their flocks and herds, they shall go and seek Yahweh, but they will not find him.

He has withdrawn from them. They have dealt faithlessly with Yahweh, for they have born alien children. Now the new moon shall devour them with their fields. God's anger with idolatry is the kind of anger that if you continue in it will actually show that his face isn't actually smiling upon you. Because of, we saw last week in Ezekiel 36, some of the other passages, God's sanctifying grace in your life should lead you away from idolatry.

I'm not saying it will always be easy. I'm not saying every one of you will have the discernment. One of the reasons you need to listen to other people in Christianity, particularly those who have discernment is you don't always recognize the danger and other people see it sometimes for what it is before you do like a farmer can look at seeds and know oh this is going to be this kind of plant or this kind of tree or this kind of tomato or some of those kinds of things there's people that probably have that expertise i don't you have to tell me what kind of seed it is and then i plant it and then you know months later I might know what it is.

But there's some people with the gift of discernment where they see things for what they are early on and they stand on like a watchtower and they try to warn other Christians, stay away from this. It's garbage. It only leads in the wrong direction. It'll only lead you away from Christ. There's no good in it at all. In fact sometimes it doctrines of demons But our pride verse 5 the pride of Israel testifies to his face or in the presence of God himself Our pride keeps us from wanting to listen to people that know more than us.

So God is angry with idolatry, Nahum 1, 2-5. Yahweh is a jealous and avenging God. Yahweh is avenging and wrathful. Yahweh takes vengeance on his adversaries and keeps wrath for his enemies. Keep listening. Yahweh is slow to anger and great in power.

And Yahweh will by no means clear the guilty. His way is in whirlwind and storm. And the clouds are the dust of His feet. He rebukes the sea and makes it dry. He dries up all the rivers. Bashan and Carmel wither.

The bloom of Lebanon withers. The mountains quake before Him. The hills melt. The earth heaves before him, the world and all who dwell in it. Now listen to this question that Nahum asks in verse 1-6. Nahum says, Who can stand before his indignation?

Who can endure the heat of his anger? He just described the amazing power of our God. we can't even imagine capturing a cloud the clouds are dust for his feet he says who can stand before his indignation who can endure the heat of his anger I'll tell you what, it's not you somebody doesn't yell out Jesus Christ right now Jesus Christ can Jesus Christ is the one who could actually take on the heat of his anger so like a jealous I hate comparing God to men but like a jealous husband who walks in on his wife doing the dirty deed with the I hate to call them lovers but that's the phrase we sometimes use but with the person that she's fornicating with and a jealous husband the anger that he would have and the ability to execute judgment immediately, God has so much more anger and so much more power to execute His judgments than we can even imagine. And yet, I dare you, if you go look up statistics in criminal investigations, I think that it's still the case that like 90% of murders are just jealous motivated.

Like almost all murders are somebody found out that the other person was doing something they shouldn't or they just suspected them of it And whether it was premeditated murder or whether they just got in a fight and it was an accident. That's like the most common thing. And forgive me if the 90% was wrong. I know it's a high number. This is like the most common thing in our culture.

And we somehow think that God just doesn't care. Proverbs 27.4. Wrath is cruel. Anger is overwhelming. But who can stand before jealousy? Jesus can.

Jesus can stand before the jealousy of God. and he can actually drink the full cup of God's wrath for all the people for every single moment of all their abominable idolatries against him. Forget all the other commandments for just a moment. Every one of us is deserving of eternal hell and torment because of even one moment of your idolatry and yet most of us persisted in it for over a decade before we got saved and some of us still dabble with it in our Christianity.

And Jesus Christ who never once did a single thing wrong, never took his mind off God, never once did anything to deserve any wrath, took it all upon himself because he could and because he loved his people. Shai Lin wrote a song called The Jealous One. And he's a Christian rapper. He's recently said some things that have caused some concern. So I'm not telling you go look up Shai Lin and believe everything he has said or written.

But this album he wrote called The Attributes of God was a good one. and in the song about God's jealousy, he says, I couldn't think of much worse if I tried than a dude who smirks if you flirt with his bride. So tell me, what kind of God would he be if he wasn't bothered to see idolatry? Is God just supposed to laugh and withhold his wrath when he's replaced by a golden calf?

You say, I don't worship a golden calf. Well, for us, it's self and sex and loads of cash. Atrocious paths, we still don't know the half of how these things provoke His holy wrath. So we stand in awe and wonder how come God took His jealous anger out on His Son. So all those that trust Him can see like we're supposed to see and be forgiven of our spiritual adultery.

I think he said it really well. I want to close in Zephaniah. If you turn there, it's only three chapters. It's one of those books that you read it and you forget what it says and you read it again. I encourage you with some of these Old Testament books that I referenced to go look at them yourself. I'm just going to start reading in verse 2.

I will utterly sweep away everything from the face of the earth, declares Yahweh. I will sweep away man and beast. I will sweep away the birds of the heavens and the fish of the sea and the rubble with the wicked. I will cut off mankind from the face of the earth, declares Yahweh. This is utter destruction. I will stretch out my hand against Judah and against all the inhabitants of Jerusalem. and I will cut off from this place the remnant of Baal in the name of the idolatrous priests along with the priests.

Those who bow down on the roofs to the host of the heavens those who bow down and swear to Yahweh and yet swear by Milcom He talking about people that worship the stars when he says the host of the heavens People who worship angels and who have manufactured things, created things. And he says, be silent before Yahweh or the Lord Yahweh, I think that one is. For the day of Yahweh is near.

Yahweh has prepared a sacrifice and consecrated his guests he's prepared a sacrifice that word should jump out at you when you read the Old Testament now you go to Covenant Bible Church the word sacrifice should immediately make you think of something the Lord Jesus Christ he says and on the day of Yahweh's sacrifice I will punish the officials and the king's sons and all who array themselves in foreign attire. On that day I will punish everyone who leaps over the threshold and those who fill their master's house with violence and fraud. On that day, declares Yahweh, a cry will be heard from the fish gate, a wail from the second quarter, a loud crash from the hills.

Wail, O inhabitants of the mortar, for all the traitors are no more. All who weigh out silver are cut off. At that time I will search Jerusalem with lamps and I will punish the men who are complacent. Those who say in their hearts, Yahweh will not do good, nor will he do ill. their goods shall be plundered their houses laid waste is total destruction though they build houses they shall not inhabit them though they plant vineyards they shall not drink wine from them the great day of Yahweh is near near and hastening fast the sound of the day of Yahweh is bitter the mighty man cries aloud there a day of wrath is that day a day of distress and anguish a day of ruin and devastation a day of darkness and gloom a day of clouds of thick darkness.

If you're not seeing this theme yet, this is like the worst movie anyone ever made of destruction. All the movies we've seen where the aliens come and the bad things happen. This is way worse than whatever man has ever been able to conjecture even. A day of trumpet blast and battle cry against the fortified cities. Against the lofty battlements. I will bring distress on mankind so that they shall walk like the blind. because they have sinned against Yahweh their blood shall be poured out like dust and their flesh like dung worthless he says neither their silver nor their gold shall be able to deliver them on the day of the wrath of Yahweh in the fire of his jealousy all the earth shall be consumed for a full and sudden end he will make of all the inhabitants of the earth but look at chapter 3 verse 8 he says therefore wait for me declares Yahweh for the day when I rise up to seize the prey for my decision is to gather nations to assemble kingdoms to pour out upon them my indignation all my burning anger for in the fire of my jealousy all the earth shall be consumed but then he says for at that time I will change the speech of the peoples to a pure speech that all of them may call upon the name of Yahweh and serve Him with one accord.

From beyond the rivers of Cush my worshippers, the daughter of my dispersed ones shall bring my offering. On that day you shall not be put to shame because of the deeds by which you have rebelled against me. For then I will remove from your midst you're proudly exalted ones and you shall no longer be haughty in my holy mountain he's talking about forgiveness offered in Jesus Christ to the nations when God told Israel in Deuteronomy 32 I will make you jealous of another nation that's what Paul quotes in Romans 10 to describe the fact that God has stopped dealing with the Jews only and he started opening up the gospel to all nations and it's actually so that Israel will be jealous of what they once had and get saved verse 14 Zephaniah 3 sing aloud O daughter of Zion shout O Israel rejoice and exalt with all your heart O daughter of Jerusalem he's talking about his people here this is his church, this is us too he says Yahweh has taken away the judgments against you all those judgments that we just read about the total destruction of the earth everything being consumed, I want you to realize that that promise was still fulfilled, and it's yes and amen in Jesus Christ.

So God will wipe away the earth one day. But instead of just doing it and we all go to hell, He instead punished Jesus with the same type of punishment the entire earth was just promised. Jesus is the one who drank that cup. And why did He do it? Yahweh has taken away the judgments against you. He has cleared away your enemies.

The King of Israel, Yahweh, is in your midst. You shall never again fear evil. On that day it shall be said to Jerusalem, Fear not, O Zion, let not your hands grow weak. Now read this verse with me and then memorize it. Put it on your mirror in the morning. Put it on your little pad that you look at once in a while.

Make it the screensaver on your phone. Yahweh, your God, is in your midst. A mighty one who will save. He will rejoice over you with gladness. He will quiet you by his love. He will exalt over you with loud singing.

Jesus Christ, for the joy set before him, endured the cross, despising the shame, and is seated at the right hand of God. And he exalts over his people with singing. He loves his people. His love is supposed to quiet us. it's a description that you don't need to be fearful of evil you don't need to be fearful of anything his love should be the antidote to anxiety his love is the antidepressant of all antidepressants and he rejoices over you with singing great joy in his people.

And he didn't endure all that for nothing. He endured all that so that we might worship him. So that you may investigate in your own life where you are committing spiritual adultery and that you will take it seriously. And so, bow your head and pray with me and we'll ask the Lord to forgive us. And help us, Father. We come to you through the name of Jesus Christ, the only Son of God who lived and bled for us.

And we have no hope apart from Him of any kind of goodness. We have no righteousness of our own that we can brag about. If we had any righteousness, it is filthy rags in your eyes. And in fact, our own belief in our own righteousness was maybe our first idol. So Lord, forgive us for all of the times that we have strayed from the purity of your gospel, from the love of your Son, all the times we have ignored the urgings of your spirit, the times we have quenched the spirit, the times we have abandoned your word and sought out worldly solutions to spiritual problems.

Forgive us for joining with wickedness at different times. Forgive us for all the times we have longed for what the world has, the prosperity of the wicked. Forgive us, Lord, for not trusting in you alone. thank you for sending Jesus thank you that Jesus paid the price that we deserve for our idolatry that if we had committed no other sins it would have been sufficient for him to still need to hang on that cross and to be forsaken and cry out my God my God why have you forsaken me so strengthen us for this battle Lord let the joy of the Lord be our strength and let us meditate upon the fact that Jesus loves us Amen